Millenium Acquires Rights to Richard Linklater’s BERNIE

Having opening the 2011 LA Film Festival back in June, director Richard Linklater’s (Dazed and Confused) Bernie has now landed a distributor. Deadline reports that Millenium Entertainment is nearing a deal to distribute the black comedy domestically. Starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, and Shirley MacLaine, Bernie is set in a small Texas town and tells the story of a beloved mortician (Black) who kills an adoring rich widow (MacLaine) and then plays it off as if she’s still alive. There is no word on when Millenium will release the pic theatrically but I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than later.

As for Linklater, the director is still working on his real-time coming-of-age tale Boyhood (a.k.a. Growing Up), a film starring Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, and Ellar Salmon that he began shooting back in 2002. The completed pic will chronicle a young man’s (Salmon) trek from six years old to the twelfth grade and, as Linklater told The Playlist back in June, will continue shooting through 2014.